Socioeconomic Status (SES) As An Antecedent To Perception Of Healthcare Service Quality

Abstract
This paper attempts to explore how socioeconomic status (SES) influences the perception of quality in healthcare services. There is a strong belief that there are healthcare inequities in patients and their attendees’ reported experiences. SES affects perceived quality of healthcare services and its dimensions. The study adopted a cross-sectional quantitative design of research. A sample of 480 users of healthcare services in both the public and private hospitals was used for the study. The self-developed scale was used to measure service quality whereas the SES scale developed by Dhar and Dhar (2020) was used for identifying the SES levels. The descriptive statistics, reliability analysis, correlation, and multiple regression were used to analyze the data. Findings suggest that the SES is a strong predictor of perceived quality of healthcare services (0.41, p < 0.001) or 38 percent of variation. Higher SES respondents gave more emphasis on the reliability and consistency dimensions of healthcare service quality whereas the lower SES respondents gave higher emphasis on receptiveness and credibility dimensions. These results imply that socioeconomic disparities do influence the experience assessments of care. The research suggests that SES-sensitive strategies should be included in the healthcare quality improvement efforts to provide equitable patient experiences and outcomes.